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Monday, October 27, 2014

Star Wars: A Return To The Old Republic - Day 1

I could tell you what this article will
be about, although you probably know already given what the title is.
However, I thought of a decent and completely unoriginal way to
introduce this feature. So prepare yourself.

A long time ago in a
galaxy far, far away...

(Insert Star Wars Opening
Music Here)

STAR WARS: A RETURN TO THE
OLD REPUBLIC

Several years have passed
since Paul departed

from The Old Republic, in
search of greener pastures.

After seeing the news
about the upcoming expansion,

and after rewatching
several of the older Star Wars films with his family,

Paul decided it was time
to return to The Old Republic and see what had changed.

So Paul took lightsaber in
hand once again and jumped back in,

completely unaware of the
shenanigan riddled misadventures that awaited him...

Forgive me, I couldn't
possibly resist. That said, I decided it was time to go back to Star
Wars: The Old Republic and provide my thoughts on how things have
changed since the game was released back in December 2011. However,
one mere article would not be enough to do this game any justice. As
a result, this return to SWTOR article will be broken up into several
parts. Tentatively, I'm thinking maybe six or seven.

In case you hadn't heard,
there will be an expansion for SWTOR called Shadow of Revan. The
level cap will be increased to 60, and will feature Revan as both the
Empire and Republic seek to put a stop to whatever it is he is
planning on doing. As expected, there will be some new flashpoints
and operations (AKA dungeons and raids) for players to do as well. I
haven't decided if RBFB will be providing coverage of the new
expansion, but time will tell.

Without further ado, let's
get started.

This is a landscape shot of Dromund Kaas I had taken back in 2011.

Day 1, Entry 1:

As many of you know, SWTOR
went free to play awhile back. I remembered reading how limited the
free to play version of the game was, even for former subscribers.
So I decided to pick up a 60 day time card so that I could play the
game without any restrictions. As I tried to log into my account on
the official website, I remembered that I had gotten one of those
authenticators for my SWTOR account. I searched all over the place
for it, but couldn't find it. So I had to go through a few hoops in
order to detach the security key.

When SWTOR went free to
play, a micro-transaction system was put in place that used something
called Cartel Coins. I hope that Cartel Coins can't be used to
purchase raid gear or anything like that, but that remains to be
seen. As I checked my account, I discovered that having an
authenticator attached to my account was giving me 100 free Cartel
Coins a month. As a result, my account had over 2000 Cartel Coins.
So now I basically have free in-game money to use as I see fit. I
never made it to level 50 on any of my characters, so perhaps I could
make use of some EXP boosters if they are available on the in-game
store?

EA is involved in this game, so the fact that micro-transactions came into this game is not surprising at all.

After my account was set up,
I downloaded the SWTOR client and got it installed. It took a minute
to figure out which server my main characters were on given that my
home server known as Thana'vesh was gone, lost to the void when SWTOR
went free to play after the game's population dropped drastically.
Now I am on Shadowlands, which seems to have a population that ranged
from 'light' to 'standard'. I wonder how many players are actively
subscribed to SWTOR now?

When I reached the character
log in screen I selected my Sith Warrior character. Upon logging
into my level 39 character, I was greeted with various messages
talking about stuff that had changed along with updates to the
graphics. My skill tree was reset and at the time of writing this
entry I have yet to set it back. To be honest the first hour or so
of gameplay has just been browsing through all the new stuff. When I
left the game, the legacy system had barely been implemented beyond
being able to gain experience in it.

Now there are a bunch of
systems and mechanics that I barely recognized. I wonder if this is
how a WoW player feels when they return to the game for the first
time in years, because I felt completely overwhelmed as I gazed at
countless amounts of new information, updates, and content. Now
there is reputation, a bunch of legacy perks, and several messages
in my mailbox. Despite the fact that I have not been an active
player since early 2012, Bioware was nice enough to give me various
event gift packages in the mail. This included some anniversary
packages, titles for content updates, five currency tokens for
starter end game gear, and even a astromech companion that was a
reward for Star Wars day (May 4th).

Here is the astromech in question.

I noticed one big change to
the UI as well, which was a giant flashing Cartel Coin which proudly
labeled itself as the in-game store. I browsed around the store and
noticed the wide variety of content that was being sold. Now that
the game has gone free to play, I suppose that they had to do
something to get some money. At present I've only bought a pack of
EXP boosters so that I could try to catch up with whatever the end
game content is.

While we are discussing
Cartel Coins, I noticed that they can be used to purchase things like
inventory slot upgrades and legacy perks at significantly lower costs
than credits. I only have about 110k credits to my name at present,
so Cartel Coins give me another option while I earn more credits.

There is even the option to
fully customize the UI, but the editor does not seem particularly
friendly. So I'll need to play that and decide on what my spec will
be for my Sith Warrior. It could actually take a few hours before
I'm able to get back into the game in terms of actually playing it.
Speaking of the game, I apparently have the first expansion involving
the Hutts completely free of charge. I don't know if this is true or
not, but I saw it listed as a game I own on my account.

When I first saw this on the editor, I had no idea what to make of it.

Day 1, Entry 2:

It took some time, but I
think I finally found a UI setup that I like. I found a good
leveling build for my Sith Warrior as well. After I completed all
that, I headed straight to the Imperial fleet to see if there was
anything I could buy or any skills I could pick up. As I arrived and
left the dock area, I was greeted by many an unusual sight. There
were quite a few vehicles/mounts I had never seen in the game before.
I could have sworn I saw a guy riding around on a small Rancor, but
I must be mistaken as there is no way a creature like that could be a
mount.

One thing that caught me by
surprise was how populated Shadowlands is. I was expecting the fleet
to be rather ghost town-ish, yet that was not the case. I have
included some screenshots to show the population of the game in this
particular area. Of course, the screenshots I had originally taken
didn't register because the SWTOR screencap function is bugged. So
these other images will have to do for now, I'm afraid.

So after looking around I
started visiting vendors as I came across them. Apparently all the
commendations you get from doing quests on planets have now been
consolidated into one currency, and that is a wonderful thing. There
were way too many currencies back when I played, and it is nice to
have only one kind of currency to worry about. To make things even
better, all my commendations were combined so I could afford a new
helmet for myself and one of my AI companions and still have some
more commendations to spend.

I encountered an area which
talked about Strongholds. After reading some of the descriptions, it
sounds like Strongholds is basically player housing. I could easily
afford the apartment on Dromund Kaas, but for now I want to focus on
leveling up my character and continuing the story. There is a lot of
content that a mere level 39 character cannot so much as even glimpse
at, so I have my work cut out for me. Thankfully I do have some EXP
boosters, so that should speed up the process a little. Speaking of
Dromund Kaas, I got an item in my mail which will allow me to create
a weapon if I turn it into a vendor on that planet.

Day 1, Entry 3:

Well the item turned out to
be a waste of time, so I moved on and set a course for Hoth. I still
had a few quests left to finish there and I'm a little under the
recommended level for the next planet in the story. There aren't
many quests, but it should be enough to at least get me to level 40
and possibly half way to 41.

As I landed on Hoth and
started doing some quests, I realized that the gameplay for SWTOR
hasn't really changed much. Kill X amount of bad guys, collect this,
activate that, same old stuff. Compared to WoW, leveling is a little
more challenging given you do have to pick and choose your fights to
some extent. But with a decent spec and a good rotation, the
difficulty is very much manageable.

Even in the distant past, Hoth was a frozen hellhole.

I only wish that the EXP
booster gave more than 25%, but there are other ways to boost how
much EXP I gain. The legacy system has several perks I can purchase
that boost EXP in a variety of activities from class missions to
flashpoints. However, my legacy level is only five so there is only
so much I can purchase. Granted I can use Cartel Coins, but I'm
trying to use mine sparingly.

As I write this, I'm very
close to level 40. In the next entry, I will likely be well on my
way to level 41 and possibly on a new planet.